Boaz Hameiri

Boaz Hameiri
Tel Aviv University | TAU · The Program in Conflict Resolution and Mediation

PhD

About

63
Publications
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1,116
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Introduction
I am a Senior Lecturer and the Head of the Evens Program in Conflict Resolution and Mediation at Tel Aviv University. My program of research consists of an examination of different psychological barriers to attitude change and conflict resolution, and the development of psychological interventions (e.g., paradoxical thinking) to address these barriers and promote better intergroup relations and conflict resolution.

Publications

Publications (63)
Article
Full-text available
The chapter introduces a new approach to attitude change, termed paradoxical thinking. It suggests that messages that are consistent with an individual's view, but formulated in an amplified, exaggerated, or even absurd manner, lead to an extended process of deliberative thinking and arouse lower levels of resistance compared to conventional persua...
Article
People’s actions toward a competitive outgroup can be motivated not only by their perceptions of the outgroup, but also by how they think the outgroup perceives the ingroup (i.e., meta-perceptions). Here, we examine the prevalence, accuracy, and consequences of meta-perceptions among American political partisans. Using a representative sample ( n =...
Article
Full-text available
A large portion of research in the social sciences is devoted to combating societal and social problems, such as prejudice, discrimination, and intergroup conflict, with interventions. However, these interventions are often developed based on the theories and/or intuitions of those who developed them and evaluated in isolation without comparing the...
Article
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Whereas politicians broker peace deals, it falls to the public to embrace peace and help sustain it. The legacy of conflicts can make it difficult for people to support reconciling and reintegrating with former enemies. Here we create a five-minute media intervention from interviews we conducted with Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) ex-c...
Article
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Objective: Understanding the drivers of political violence is critical, given the destructive consequences it has on the fabric of society. Prior work has established the importance of situational and dispositional predictors of political violence, such as search for significance and meaning and experiencing trauma. However, these predictors do not...
Article
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In a world grappling with technological advancements, the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in governance is becoming increasingly realistic. While some may find this possibility incredibly alluring, others may see it as dystopian. Society must account for these varied opinions when implementing new technologies or regulating and limiting the...
Article
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The Informative Process Model (IPM) proposes an intervention to facilitate change in conflict-supporting narratives in protracted conflicts. These narratives develop to help societies cope with conflict; but over time, they turn into barriers for its resolution. The IPM suggests raising awareness of the psychological processes responsible for the d...
Article
Mental perspectives can sometimes be changed by psychological interventions. For instance, when applied in the context of intergroup conflicts, interventions, such as the paradoxical thinking intervention, may unfreeze ingrained negative outgroup attitudes and thereby promote progress toward peacemaking. Yet, at present, the evaluation of intervent...
Article
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We explore meta-perceptions (i.e., what we think others think about reality), their impact on intergroup conflict, and the interventions correcting these often-erroneous perceptions. We introduce a 2 (direct or indirect) by 2 (with or without framing) framework classifying these interventions, and critically assess the benefits and constraints of t...
Article
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Research has shown that subversive humor may be used to challenge existing societal hierarchies by confronting people with prejudice. Expanding on this literature, we hypothesized that humor would create two simultaneous and offsetting psychological mechanisms: increasing collective action motivation by signaling speaker power and inspiring efficac...
Article
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Deep distrust of the rival is widely shared among members of society involved in intractable conflicts, and constitutes a major barrier for peace-building. In the current research we examine an intervention aimed at legitimizing the other side as a partner to peace that can be trusted through providing information about a peaceful change among a me...
Article
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Dehumanization continues to be prevalent today and predicts detrimental intergroup consequences. Thus, it is important to identify novel interventions that reduce dehumanization and explore the mechanism(s)—both established (e.g., empathy induction, intergroup contact) and relatively understudied (e.g., humor)—driving the effects. To address this i...
Article
COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world in many ways. At the societal level, disparities in attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccines have led to polarization and intense animosity. In this study, we use a novel paradoxical thinking intervention that was found to be effective in difficult and violent intergroup contexts, and measure its effectiveness...
Article
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Conspiracy theories widely influence our social and political lives. A recent example is the broad impact such theories had on government’s efforts to halt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In that context, public’s compliance and willingness to get vaccinated was found to be substantially and negatively affected by the belief in conspiracy theo...
Article
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Members of historically advantaged groups are often unwilling to support actions or policies aimed at reducing inequality between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, even if they generally support the principle of equality. Based on past research, we suggest a self-affirmation intervention (an intervention in which people reflect on a positive tra...
Article
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Emile Bruneau devoted his life to “putting science to work for peace,” and he wished that scientists, practitioners, and civil society would carry on this vision. The aim of this special issue is to document and advance those efforts—where science meets the real world and practice informs inquiry. This special issue brings together over a dozen dif...
Article
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Peacemaking is especially challenging in situations of intractable conflict. Collective narratives in this context contribute to coping with challenges societies face, but also fuel conflict continuation. We introduce the Informative Process Model (IPM), proposing that informing individuals about the socio-psychological processes through which conf...
Article
Conspiracy theories widely influence our social and political lives. Thus, it is no surprise that in recent years much research has focused on the factors that may drive the belief in such theories. While we know that different contexts can lead to the development and amplification of conspiracy theories; those involving fear, uncertainty, and loss...
Article
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The current paper is a personal account, describing the behind the scenes of an ongoing translational research project, initiated by Emile Bruneau in 2018, in collaboration with a team of scientists, filmmakers, and protagonists of the peace process in Colombia. The paper is divided to two sections. The first section highlights the raising demand f...
Article
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There is a growing push within the social sciences to conduct translational science that not only advances theory but also achieves real world impact. The goals of this paper are (1) to encourage scholars to engage in translational science by conducting research that responds to pressing social challenges, and (2) to provide concrete recommendation...
Article
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Western countries have witnessed increased hostility towards Muslims among individuals, and structurally in the ways that media covers stories related to Islam/Muslims and in policies that infringe on the rights of Muslim communities. In response, practitioners have created media interventions that aim to reduce Islamophobia. However, it is unclear...
Article
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There is a growing scientific interest around entrepreneurship. One central line of research examines how different personality traits and characteristics such as creativity or resilience relate to entrepreneurial intentions and behavior. In the current research, we add to this literature by focusing on trait victimhood, a trait that entrepreneursh...
Article
Muslims are consistently the target of dehumanization and hostile policies. Previous research shows that interventions that highlight the hypocrisy wherein people collectively blame entire groups for the heinous acts of individual members of outgroups but not ingroups are effective in reducing animosity towards Muslims. However, these interventions...
Article
Anti-migrant policies at the U.S. southern border have resulted in the separation and long-term internment of thousands of migrant children and the deaths of many migrants. What leads people to support such harsh policies? Here we examine the role of two prominent psychological factors—empathy and dehumanization. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that em...
Article
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Members of societies involved in an intractable conflict usually consider costs that stem from the continuation of the conflict as unavoidable and even justify for their collective existence. This perception is well-anchored in widely shared conflict-supporting narratives that motivate them to avoid information that challenges their views about the...
Chapter
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The world is plagued by social problems such as violent conflicts, waves of international migration, and global warming. Solutions to these problems not only require tangible resources but importantly, often demand changes in beliefs and attitudes of society members. However, changing the beliefs and attitudes to which people strongly adhere has pr...
Article
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The present study compared participants’ evaluations of their own conflict with their evaluation of another conflict. These evaluations were examined through the prism of the ideological ethos of conflict (EOC), which was seen as the major contributing factor in the development of the biased perceptions, divergent understandings, and emotional resp...
Article
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Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities have issued several guidelines to curb the pandemic's disastrous effects. However, measures' effectiveness is dependent upon people's adherence to them. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the potential factors that explain guideline adherence. In the present brief research report, we...
Article
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In 16 independent samples from five countries involving ~7,700 participants, we employ a mixture of cross-sectional, longitudinal, and quasi-experimental methods to examine the effect of intergroup contact on (a) the blatant dehumanization of outgroups, and (b) the perception that outgroup members dehumanize the ingroup (meta-dehumanization). First...
Chapter
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This chapter discusses individual differences in the tendency to perceive interpersonal victimhood, and parallels to collective victimhood. Specifically, some people are more likely than others to perceive victimization on the interpersonal level, experience it more intensely, and incorporate these experiences into their identity. The tendency to p...
Article
Democracies welcome dissent, but when disagreements turn divisive, they can imperil social cohesion and become toxic to democracy. We review research on the psychological processes associated with toxic polarization. Prior work has generally focused on polarization as a consequence of ideological differences or affective evaluations. We assess rece...
Article
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In the present research, we introduce a conceptualization of the Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV), which we define as an enduring feeling that the self is a victim across different kinds of interpersonal relationships. Then, in a comprehensive set of eight studies, we develop a measure for this novel personality trait, TIV, and examine i...
Chapter
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In much of the literature on peacebuilding and reconciliation in the after- math of collective violence, it is implied or assumed that acknowledgment of the group’s collective experiences of victimization matters and is even a fundamental need. “Survivors of violence often ache for . . . public acknowl- edgment of what happened,” notes Minow (1998,...
Article
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Changing attitudes is one of the most challenging and important endeavors social psychologists have undertaken in order to promote better quality of life for individuals and collectives. However, when addressing pressing issues, such as intergroup conflict, racism, and inequality, changing attitudes is particularly difficult as individuals are ofte...
Article
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The current research examined whether for a message that is based on the paradoxical thinking principles—i.e., providing extreme, exaggerated, or even absurd views, that are congruent with the held views of the message recipients—to be effective, it needs to hit a ‘sweet spot’ and lead to a contrast effect. That is, it moderates the view of the mes...
Article
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Group‐based guilt and shame are part of a wide range of moral emotions in intergroup conflicts. These emotions can potentially motivate group members to make compromises in order to promote conflict resolution, and increase support for reparations and apologies following moral transgressions committed by the in‐group. Thus, it is important to under...
Preprint
People’s actions toward a competitive outgroup can be motivated not only by their perceptions of the outgroup, but also by how they think the outgroup perceives the ingroup (i.e., meta-perceptions). Here we examine the prevalence, accuracy, and consequences of meta-perceptions among American political partisans. Using a representative sample (N = 1...
Article
Full-text available
In this article, we examined the effect of external cues on first offers in negotiation. Specifically, we present the results of three experiments and an internal meta-analysis through which we investigated the relations between buyers' external characteristics, which serve as cues of economic wealth, including their clothes, cars and country of or...
Article
Full-text available
Social problems such as intergroup conflicts, prejudice, and discrimination have a significant effect on the world’s population. Often, to facilitate constructive solutions to these problems, fundamental attitude change is needed. However, changing the beliefs and attitudes to which people strongly adhere has proven to be difficult, as these indivi...
Article
Full-text available
Self-censorship is defined as intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others in absence of formal obstacles. We conducted cross-sectional and longitudinal research to develop a quantitative measure of individuals’ Self-Censorship Orientation (SCO) and investigated its correlates and outcomes in the context of the intractable Isra...
Article
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Given the central role of anger in shaping adversarial policy preferences in the context of intergroup conflict, its reduction may promote conflict resolution. In the current work, we drew on psycholinguistic research on the role of language in generating emotions to explore a novel, extremely subtle means of intervention. Specifically, we hypothes...
Article
Full-text available
Conflict-resolution interventions based on the paradoxical thinking principles, i.e., expressing amplified, exaggerated or even absurd ideas that are congruent with the held conflict-supporting societal beliefs, have been shown to be an effective avenue of intervention, especially among individuals who are adamant in their views. However, the quest...
Chapter
Full-text available
Self-censorship is of great importance in societies involved in intractable conflict. In this context, it blocks information that may contradict the dominant conflict-supporting narratives. Thus, self-censorship often serves as an effective societal mechanism that prevents free flow and transparency of information regarding the conflict and therefo...
Article
Full-text available
This article presents a new intervention model for intra-group dialogue. Twenty-four Jewish-Israeli undergraduate students underwent a year-long process to learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, encountered Palestinian narratives, and reflected on the impact of the Palestinian other on their own identity as Jewish-Israelis. We propose that s...
Article
Two large-scale surveys conducted in Israel (Study 1A) and the Palestinian Authority (Study 1B) show that the belief by group members that people in the " enemy " group acknowledge their victimhood (i.e., Holocaust and Nakba for Jews and Palestinians, respectively) is associated with Israeli-Jews' readiness to accept responsibility for Palestinian...
Article
Self-censorship is of great importance in societies involved in intractable conflict. In this context, it blocks information that may contradict the dominant conflict-supporting narratives. Thus, self-censorship often serves as an effective societal mechanism that prevents free flow and transparency of information regarding the conflict and therefo...
Article
Full-text available
Self-censorship is of great importance in societies involved in intractable conflict. In this context, it blocks information that may contradict the dominant conflict-supporting narratives. Thus, self-censorship often serves as an effective societal mechanism that prevents free flow and transparency of information regarding the conflict and therefo...
Article
Full-text available
Significance Societies involved in intractable conflicts are typically polarized in their views on how to resolve the conflict. Hawkish members of society adhere to an uncompromising and nonconciliatory ideology. Therefore, interventions that may change their attitudes are particularly important but simultaneously are very difficult to apply becaus...
Article
Self-censorship, defined as an “act of intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others in the absence of formal obstacles” often serves as a barrier to resolving intractable conflicts. Specifically, in order to protect the group, and in absence of objective constraints such as institutionalized censorship, individuals practice sel...
Chapter
For most of his career, Daniel Bar-Tal has been one of the more prolific contributors to the understanding of the psychological foundations of intergroup conflicts, with extensive writings on intractable conflicts. In recent years, Bar-Tal, along with his students, has taken upon himself the mission of finding new ways—using new approaches, differe...
Article
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Resolving intergroup conflicts is one of humanity’s most important challenges. Social psychologists join this endeavor, not only to understand the psychological foundations of intergroup conflicts but also to suggest interventions that aim to resolve conflicts peacefully. The present article begins by describing a specific type of conflict, namely,...
Article
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Significance The premise of most interventions that aim to promote peacemaking is that information that is inconsistent with held beliefs causes tension, which may motivate alternative information seeking. However, individuals—especially during conflict—use different defenses to preserve their societal beliefs. Therefore, we developed a new paradox...
Article
According to construal level theory, psychological distance promotes more abstract thought. Theories of creativity, in turn, suggest that abstract thought promotes creativity. Based on these lines of theorizing, we predicted that spatial distancing would enhance creative performance in elementary school children. To test this prediction, we primed...

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